Can’t believe it’s taking so long to solve the outstanding THF issues

Updated article by CBC news concerning THF. Why is it taking so long to resolve not only deficiencies but the law suits. We’ll never get a Grey Cup in my lifetime at this rate. Very disappointing. Plus they can give me the $60K to book events at THF. THIS COUNCIL NEEDS TO GO!!

I’m with the Councillor on the booking issue. Why would should the city pay an outside company to book events? Let city employees deal with booking local events, while the Ticats fill their four non-football events a year.

I’m sorry, what do you expect the city to do? Not sue the contractors for failing to fix the stadium deficiencies?

And as many times as people on this forum spit out "State-of-the-art"
lol

Be wary of the cheapest bid..

But really just enjoy your football and whatever events they hold there I wouldn't concern myself with lawyers having their own fun

Governments at almost all levels are guilty of only looking at the price tag.

What needs to a factor is the reputation of the company involved and who is providing the best VALUE for the money paid…

If the contractor and the project manager did NOT deliver on what was promised and paid for, then the city has a responsibility to the taxpayers to require action on the deficiencies noted.

If the contractor is not held accountable, then property owners in the region (or the province) will be footing the bill.

I say good on the city for taking up the cause.

I am not saying they should not go after the contractor. I’m saying 4 years is way too long to get this resolved. How long can law suits take to go through our courts or have a negotiated settlement?
I emailed Ferguson and asked about issues resolving this and all I got back was “you wouldn’t believe how much the Cats are suing us for!?
So as a taxpayer, I’d like to know what the details of each law suit are. The entire 3 ring circus involved. Who is suing who for how much and why? Where in the long, long process are we? The longer it goes, the more we make lawyers rich.
We are missing an opportunity of million of dollars in economic benefits by hosting a Grey Cup.

Well, if only for the advantage of the efficiencies of an outside market driven solution over a further bloated municipal government bureaucracy (hey, we need some help with this… I know, MORE GOVERNMENT!!). The taxpayer of Hamilton already pays too much to support bloat and waste by city counsel. I’m not for adding to that in any way.

It’s time to change the culture in Canada. Our first reply to an issue should NOT be “why isn’t the government doing something?”

Lawyers are a big part of the problem IMO. It’s in their best interest to keep both parties agitated and in disagreement. Had a binding mediation process been mandated first, this likely would be over and the building repairs completed. Now if the city paid the final bills and signed releases without proper holdbacks and inspections, that’s negligence on their part.

Saskatchewan/Regina doesn't appear to be having the kind of nightmare Hamilton is.

Are contractors in Saskatchewan simply less crooked than contractors in Ontario?

And how do we know that the company contracted to do this is not going to overbill and/or deliver what they promised??

Don’t forget it was a private business that was contracted to build the stadium…and look how that turned out…

If you read this 55 page report,(page 11 is about the bundling of projects) the Auditor General is basically blaming Infrastructure Ontario for bundling construction projects to attract larger international construction companies. Worked well didn’t it?
IO is an ONTARIO GOVERNMENT CREATION. The same people who are bringing us a 1 BILLION DOLLAR LRT. Anyone else worried about these jokers leading this parade?

I understand that Infrastructure Ontario is a provincial government agency. But the builder themselves, for example, placed the speakers without adequate supports and there were other situations thatdemonstrated poor workmanship.

I understand your opinion but the overall project was owned by IO and therefore bears responsibility to deal with all the contractors involved. Hamilton needs to use holdbacks to fix what’s wrong (which they are doing slowly) until holdbacks run out.
The whole idea of IO is a government blunder. Every project they’ve been involved with is grossly over budget and behind schedule…why do we (they…the Liberals) continue down this path. Insanity…doing the same thing expecting different results.

To your first point - We don’t. But if they fail, we have a market full of options that will replace the poor service with good service. What is the option if the government bureaucracy fails? More government? And if so, at what cost and who pays? The taxpayer. Twice. Once for the initial service and again for the remedy/repair. Add to that, a failure of the market based service provider allows the buyer of the service to sue for compensation (see below).

And to your second point - because there was a contract negotiated, the poorly behaving party will be penalized, to the advantage of the city, for that poor behaviour/performance. If the government had built the stadium and failed to perform, who would they have sued? Themselves? And if they did fail, who would have paid? Oh yeah, the taxpayer. Again.

I’m interested to know why you believe that the government is better placed to provide these services than the marketplace? Your point above seems to indicate that every party other than the different levels of government are somehow to blame. Didn’t we trust those government folks to select the best and most competent of builders? It would seem to me that, if what you say above is true, they failed at this most basic of tasks.

We all know how this went down, There is tons of blame to go around here!
The Design and build group were left with a terrible timeline due to the dysfunction between the TiCats and Council who finally had to hold their noses and agree to build at the IWS site at the drop dead very last minute or lose the Pan AM Stadium to another City. They were probably on their 4th ultimatum.
I remember the Premier stating, “I have never had so much trouble giving away money” :-[
After Council rejected Confed park, East Mountain, Longwood and other sites and TiCats rejecting West Harbour, wasting years of preparation time for the builders, everyone now blames the builders for the deficiencies. If I remember correctly it was an extremely long and cold winter that year, making building even more challenging.
I’m not letting the builders off the hook here, as I said there is lots of blame to go around!
IWS was the only solution left that didn’t need rezoning and had the infrastructure in place for a 24K seat stadium.
We are so fortunate to have what we have in THF!
I don’t even want to think of the consequences, if it was built in another City

I have a feeling the Argos would have been the legacy tenant at York University as the rest of the stadium money for track was funnelled towards York after the shift from athletics to just soccer in Hamilton .

To Hamiltons benefit the stadium is better off without the distances a track would have meant for watching football or soccer .

The stadium though I believe was reduced in quality but up sized in seating as the original was for a 15,000 seat stadium with the Ti-Cats responsible for bringing the
stadium up another 10,000 with a upper deck and end zone seats at one end for the one at the Harbour . It looks like they did miss out on a roof that was on the early renders .

Grover....I’m with you on THF where it is and no issues about size. My complaint is that it’s still, after 3 years, not fixed and the lawsuits are still not settled. Hamilton needs the economic uplift from hosting a Grey Cup.

Lawsuits, even in Small Claims Court, can take years to resolve, depending on how busy the court is in the jurisdiction where the action commenced and whether the parties are using lawyers.

For a case like this, with multiple parties and involving millions of dollars, it will not be resolved anytime soon.